Yet again the Home Office has come under fire for its treatment of a European citizen, this time for denying an EEA residence card to the American husband of an Irish national living in Northern Ireland. The case of Gemma Capparelli and her husband was reported in the Guardian, and...
R (Liral Veget Training And Recruitment Ltd) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWHC 2941 (Admin) was a challenge to the Home Office’s decision to revoke a company’s licence to sponsor non-EU citizens for work visas. It failed. The case was about the Tier 2 (General) visas...
In Chanda v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 2424 the Court of Appeal grappled with paragraph 322(1A) of the Immigration Rules. The court looked briefly at the considerations that arise out of a false document and a finding of deception, stressing that the two issues...
Having been an immigration solicitor for around 20 years, I’m used to pretty chaotic weeks. The past week has been one of the most frustrating following the immigration minister’s surprisingly unpolished performance in front of the Home Affairs Committee which CJ covered in an earlier post. To some extent, it’s...
The toxic wasteland of the Daily Mail’s back catalogue on the topic of immigration needs no introduction. It is perhaps no great surprise that, asked to spend some time at Taylor House immigration tribunal recently, the pithy headline for Mail reporter Sue Reid’s subsequent splash read as follows: Can it...
In ST (Afghanistan) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 2382, the Court of Appeal has ruled that the First-tier Tribunal correctly applied both domestic and Strasbourg case law on international relocation to Kabul. The arguments in this appeal were about an tribunal determination made on...
Mass confusion following the immigration minister’s evidence (full transcript here) to the Home Affairs committee yesterday: this was a terrible appearance by Caroline Nokes @CommonsHomeAffs yesterday. Sajid Javid needs to go back as a matter of urgency; give clear answers and put out the govt’s No Deal advice on citizens...
To go along with the private jet and luxury yacht, the current ‘must-have’ for a discerning multi-millionaire seems to be a range of international passports. The phenomenon of citizenship by investment has emerged over the last few decades and developed into a billion dollar industry. These “CIP” schemes enable the...
The Times is getting in on the legal rankings game with a list of the top 200 solicitors’ firms as selected by lawyers themselves. The newspaper says that it worked with market research firm Statista to contact over 20,000 solicitors and ask them “other than your own firm, which practice...
The Court of Appeal in Secretary of State for the Home Department v Christy [2018] EWCA Civ 2378 has comprehensively rejected an argument by the Home Office seeking to limit the obligation to consider “Surinder Singh” applications by extended family members. Ben Collins QC appeared pro bono for Ms Christy....
A “virtual tour” of the immigration detention estate, which promises to shine a spotlight on the hidden world of immigration detention, launched last week and runs until 18 December. The Unlocking Detention campaign uses social media to bring the UK’s immigration removal centres to public attention. Welcome to #Unlocked18 week...
Figures obtained by Free Movement show that fewer than two thousand non-EU carers rely on EU law for their right to live in the UK. The relatively small number of people relying on these “derived rights of residence” raises questions about why the government appears set to deny them settlement...
The Home Secretary has published the results of a review into DNA testing at the Home Office, apologising to migrants who were told that genetic testing was compulsory for certain family visas. Sajid Javid also announced a potentially wide-ranging review of the immigration system more generally in a sign of...
This case is an unlawful detention claim based on shocking failures by the Home Office to comply with rules on how victims of torture and trafficking should be treated. In R (SW) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWHC 2684 (Admin), the High Court has ruled that...
I’m at a conference on EU free movement law today, organised by the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association. One of the many useful pieces of information I’ve picked up already is about rights of appeal for extended family members of EU citizens who are denied residence cards. This issue has a...
The Supreme Court has today handed down judgment in four linked cases all concerning the best interests of children who themselves face removal from the UK or whose parent faces removal from the UK. The case is likely to be referred to as KO (Nigeria) and Others v Secretary of...
The Guardian has already reported this case as “Home Office ordered to pay damages to sex-trafficking victim”, but on Bailii it is simply R (ZV) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWHC 2725 (Admin). The media attention is due to the horrifying facts: the claimant ZV says...
About 18 months ago, the Home Office announced that refugees would no longer get indefinite leave to remain automatically after being in the UK for five years. Officials are now supposed to review whether the refugee still needs the protection of the British government: All those who apply for settlement...
The Judicial Appointments Commission is advertising for 41 new salaried judges to fill vacancies in the immigration and asylum chamber of the First-tier Tribunal. The salary is an attractive £108,171 (slightly more in London). The scale of this recruitment drive is unprecedented in recent times. The last set of salaried...
So says the Upper Tribunal in PA (Protection claim, Respondent’s enquiries, Bias) [2018] UKUT 337 (IAC); at least if your confidentiality is preserved. Officials checked Bangladeshi police records for evidence of persecution PA, a Bangladeshi national, claimed asylum in April 2016 on the basis that he was an active member...
This case demonstrates that possession of a British passport is precarious. Having a passport is a privilege, not a right, and the Home Secretary can exercise his power under the royal prerogative to cancel a passport if he thinks it is in the public interest. In B & Anor v...
In AS (Guinea) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA Civ 2234, the Court of Appeal has in effect rebuffed an attempt by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to make it easier to establish statelessness. The court ruled that the standard of proof for determining a...
Welcome to the September 2018 edition of the Free Movement immigration update podcast. We tried something a bit different this month. CJ and I ran the podcast together in a more conversational style. To keep the length reasonable we’ve focussed in on fewer subjects but covered them in a bit...
Immigration and nationality law as it relates to international adoption is undoubtedly complex and a topic with which only a few practitioners are familiar. There are numerically very few international adoption cases, after all. The inevitable cross over with family law does not make it any easier. This blog post...
In SR (subsisting parental relationship – s117B(6)) Pakistan 2018 UKUT 3345 (IAC), the Upper Tribunal examines the various pieces of law relevant to deciding whether someone who has a child in the UK should be allowed to stay here. The case is helpful for two reasons: The Home Office’s approach...
In ES (s82 NIA 2002, Negative NRM) [2018] UKUT 335 (IAC) a victim of trafficking from Albania had been assessed by the Home Office not to be a victim of trafficking under the National Referral Mechanism. Previous cases have held that the tribunal is effectively fixed with the NRM trafficking...
The Home Office has published a new policy document entitled Inadmissibility: EU grants of asylum, first country of asylum and safe third country concepts, all about non-Dublin third country cases. It covers Immigration Rules 345A-D on asylum claims where the claimant has: Already been granted protection in another EU country...
C‑652/16 Nigyar Rauf Kaza Ahmedbekova and Rauf Emin Ogla Ahmedbekov v Zamestnik-predsedatel na Darzhavna agentsia za bezhantsite is a novel attempt to introduce the status of being involved in a case before the European Court of Human Rights as a ground on which refugee status can be claimed. The Court...
I’ve been working on a submission to the Windrush lessons learned review. The final date for submission of evidence is 19 October 2018 and I’d urge anyone interested in immigration policy to consider putting in a response, no matter how short. I’ll be sending in this submission, with any amendments,...
A new statement of changes to the Immigration Rules was laid on 10 October 2018. There is some very welcome news, including more flexibility given to caseworkers on whether and when they can write to applicants to ask for missing documents. (Whether they will in practice or still refuse for...
The Home Office has agreed to ask the independent Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO) to carry out an investigation into the abuse of migrants held at Brook House detention centre. The decision has been described as a “major U-turn” by Duncan Lewis Solicitors, which says the department conceded the investigation...
Today the Home Office announced a new statement of changes to the Immigration Rules and confirmed that the Immigration Health Surcharge will go from £200 to £400 in December. A link to the full statement of changes is here and a summary of the changes from the immigration minister is here....
This post is about what happens to a migrant who is in the UK on a partner visa if their sponsor passes away. If their partner dies before the migrant becomes settled, the last thing on their mind will be their immigration status. However, as status as a partner is...
The Home Office will have no idea how many EU residents are left undocumented by Brexit because it does not collect or release the necessary data, a leading immigration policy expert has warned. Madeleine Sumption said yesterday that the government has no plans to find out how many of the...
The appeal of Orhan Mendirez [2018] CSIH 65 is an interesting judgment from the Inner House in which both the Upper Tribunal and First-tier Tribunal come in for criticism. Both failed to approach their decision-making task, in an appeal focused on Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights,...
Immigration law firm Lupins has ceased trading after getting into financial difficulties. The London firm, well known in the immigration sector, halted operations from 28 September and has handed over its client files to Duncan Lewis, which has also taken on some ex-Lupins staff. We understand that Lupins has been...
Thousands of people may have been unlawfully held in immigration removal centres in recent years, the court of appeal has ruled. This opening sentence from a Guardian article the other day refers to the case of R (Hemmati & Ors) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2018] EWCA...
This is the second of two Court of Appeal cases this year about whether the Home Office behaved unlawfully towards vulnerable child asylum seekers during and after the demolition of the Calais refugee camp in 2016. The first appeal, R (Citizens UK) v SSHD [2018] EWCA Civ 1812, concerned children...
